What is LAN(Local Area Network)?
LAN is a Local Area Network, where all the systems like computers, printers, master computers that have a MAC address are connected via Lan cables and switches. A LAN is limited to specific areas such as schools, colleges, banks, or private offices. The systems can only get access to the transfers only with the systems which are connected on the LAN. Systems can communicate with each other even in the absence of the internet layer.
Useful LAN Commands:
Ping
By typing the ping in the command line interface, you will be able to see a bunch of command options that can be helpful. Some of them are -t, -a, -n, -f, and so on.
Ipconfig
With the Ipconfig command, you will be able to see the windows IP configuration on your system which is connected to the internet or is in the LAN. If you are connected with the internet on the WIFI then you will get a “Wireless LAN Adapter”. Under this section, you will find the IPV6 address, Subnet mast of your system, default gateway, IPV4 LAN address.
Ping – 192.168.43.10
With this command, you can check whether your system is connected to the network or not. By typing Ipconfig, you will find out the LAN address of your system. Once you find the LAN address, you will be able to ping on that address and check the local area connection.
Ping – 192.168.8.10 -t
This is the same command as above, but with this command, the loop will keep on running until you stop it manually. For example, if you are testing a computer system that is connected to the LAN, you can use this command to find out whether the system is getting signals from the server or not. This is one of the most popular and commonly used commands in the networking industry. If you are in the same industry, then you will use this command several times. Not only in the computer system checking but, configuring the switches or the routers.
NetStat
Netstat shows the network connection for the TCP, the network interfaces, routing tables, and network statistics, and much more in detail.
ARP
ARP stands for address resolution protocol which simply helps the users to find out the physical address, internet address and shows the types of address (dynamic or static). Normally, dynamic addresses keep on changing, for example, if you connect with the WIfi then your IP address can be 192.168.43.14, once you disconnect and then connect with the same Wifi then the IP might be changed. With ARP -a command you will be able to find out all this information about a particular system and the network connectivity.
NSLookup
The nslookup commands give back the name of the IP address of the server’s default DNS record.
Route
In the network topology, all the files are transferred in the form of packets. To transfer these file packets from one subnet to another, networks use routing tables. With route command, you can view your devices’ routing table. Not only that, but you can also edit the routing table.
This command is useful if your network is receiving a lot of traffic from the other systems. You can update the routing table by adding a new route or updating the existing route or delete a whole route.
Path ping
Path ping – 192.168.43.14 traces route to the given IP address (192.168.43.14) over a maximum of 30 hops. With this command, you will get the hostname and along with the IP address of your system.
Addresses in LAN:
In most cases, the structure of LAN addresses is 192.168.x.x. Here, 192.168 shows you are at the local area, the third digit shows the network number. For example, if you are at 192.168.6, it means that your network number is 14. The last digit in the address is the port number of the network. For example, if you are at 19.168.6.43 then it means the network number is 6 and the port number is 43.
Important LAN Components:
Switches
If you are familiar with the LAN architecture, then you know about switches. Switches are either 24 Port or 48 port. After hubs, switches took over the networking market, and currently, there are two types of switches available in the market. The first is Layer 2 switches and another Layer 3 switches. Small to medium organizations use layer 2 switches while big organizations use layer 3 switches. The layer 2 switches can only communicate and share data among the same network while layer 3 switches can communicate in a different network.
Routers
A Router is a smart device that is widely used to send data packets from one system to another. In some cases, they are used to send the packets in the same network while in other cases they are used to send packets to the different network.
Ethernet Cables
In simple words, Ethernet cables connect devices within a Local area network(LAN) such as PCs, printers, routers, switches, etc. There are various types of Ethernet cables specially built to perform different kinds of tasks for a network system. There are different types of Ethernet cables and that include category 5, category 6, and now some networking companies use category 7 cables for the faster and better packet transmission. Most technicians refer to these cables like cat5, cat6, and cat 7 cables.